Being heavily involved in Customer Information Systems (CIS) & Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems in the Utility industry means dealing with an enormous amount of data. Just for a moment consider the hundreds of thousands if not millions of customers that a Utility or an Energy Retailer maintain.  Now couple that with the implementation of Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI), Smart Meters, time of use billing & demand management and you will find that the data extracted from your customers isprofound. 

Beyond printing out a bill and sending it to your customer what can you do with this data?  Can your utility forge more meaningful relationships with your customers?  Offer new services?  Improve a process?  Introduce incentives to change consumer behaviour?  The sky is the limit when your customer information is organized in a meaningful way.

  Here are a few things you may want to consider to beef up your Marketing and ultimately your customer experience: 

• Create flexible contracts, why not offer green energy pricing to your customers? 
• Bundle Services?  Does your Utility offer more than just basic Electricity, Water & Gas?  If you have decided to get creative and sell other products and services like energy efficient appliances, furnaces and insurance how are you bundling services? Do you have an incentive program in place that is designed to keep your customers happy and will these programs grow your revenues?
• Differentiation!  Did your region open up to further deregulation and are you competing with others?  How do you differentiate yourself?  How well do you know your customers?  Effective Market Segmentation can build stronger relationships with your existing customers.
• Green Incentives – My local utility did a Marketing campaign to collect old refrigerators for free in an effort to lower electricity consumption and then provided a voucher for a big discount on a new one.  How do you manage a process like this?

Effective CRM in your Utility will allow you to plan,deploy, implement and monitor effective customer strategies that will only lead to long lasting flourishing relationships.  

Ask yourself what does your CRM do for you?